Janet, E2BN procure network for education and local authorities

Will make linking public services easier

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The national education network and a broadband provider to public services have shared a £6m deal for new infrastructure in the east of England.

The Joint Academic NETwork (Janet) and the East of England Broadband Network (E2BN), have jointly procured the network to support broadband services for schools, higher and further education bodies and local authorities.

It will begin operation during the summer.

The organisations said the move would make it easier to join up public services in the region, and meet specific needs for data transmission. They also claimed it would provide significant savings through reducing the replication of infrastructure.

Chris Kastel, chief executive of E2BN, said: "By combining the obvious synergy between both the needs of local authorities and their schools and the requirements of the higher and further education and public services, this new east of England public sector infrastructure will enable organisations to maximise the use of aggregation and collaboration, without having to worry about incremental upgrades to connectivity and the associated costs."

The network will increase capacity from 1Gbps to 10Gbps and as demand for bandwidth grows, upgrades to connections can be achieved "in a seamless manner due to the scalable nature of the network", according to the two organisations.

Bob Day, chief technology officer at Janet (UK), which manages Janet on behalf of the Joint Information Systems Committee and the further and higher education funding councils, said the initiative is an example of an increasing collaboration between Janet and the commissioners of other UK public sector networks.

"We see this approach as essential in continuing to provide the best possible services to UK education and research in an increasingly challenging public funding environment," said Day.

He added that his organisation is very supportive of the government's Public Sector Network initiative and its emphasis on driving down costs by more efficient engagement with the market.

"Regional shared service initiatives such as that in the East of England, and elsewhere, are to us key enablers of this wider PSN vision," he said.